Zumas’ debut novel reads a bit like Faulkner. Fractured imagery, shifts in time and place, and a motley crew of characters—Fod, Quinn, Geck, and Cam, to name a few—lead the reader through a patchwork map of the marred childhood and failed adulthood of Quinn, a thirtysomething washed-up musician with a drinking problem. A former anorexic and adolescent “cutter,” Quinn is smart, witty, and filled with obsession and anxiety over the events of her sister’s death and its aftermath. Zumas plays with narrative conventions here, peppering the text with short chapters that are at times ethereal and disjointed but often tinged with humor. Readers looking for gritty experimental fiction in the manner of the late Gilbert Sorrentino will find The Listeners whetting their appetites for more from this promising new author. —Booklist

One thought on “The Listeners by Leni Zumas”

The review at Full Stop (not the smartest) made me think that readers can be divided in two categories:
1) readers that want books to tell stories in the clearest possible way
2) readers that want to be challenged

The Listeners is not a novel for lazy readers.
In Leni’s own words (from a interview/profile in the current issue of Flaunt): “A reader may want a story to move forward chronologically, or a character to have a clear motivation, or a sentence to obey normative syntax and grammar, but these desires will not be met.”